Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is provided by FirstSpear, LLC (also referred to as “FirstSpear”, “we”, “our”, and “us”) to assist users (also referred to as “you” and “your”) in understanding how we collect and use the Personal Information you provide to us through the Site and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Site and our products and services. This Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Website hosted and made available to you by FirstSpear (the “Site”).
Login and Registration Procedures
Our Site is available to all Internet users, but certain products and services are available only to registered users of the Site (“Registered Users”).
Types of Information We Collect
When you visit our Web site you may provide three types of information: (1) Personal Information Registered Users are required to disclose to us; (2) credit card information disclosed by Registered Users when making purchases on the Site; and (3) Site use information which we collect from all users who browse our Site.
Personal Information
If you are a Registered User, after you have logged onto the Site, you will be asked to provide certain personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”), which may include, among other things, your name, mailing address, work and home phone numbers, and your email address. You must provide the required Personal Information as indicated on the registration form in order for us to correspond with you and for you to purchase products and services made available through our Site.
We use the Personal Information provided by our Registered Users for purposes of administering and expanding our business activities, providing customer service and making available other products and services to our Registered Users and to some extent, our non-Registered User users. Occasionally, we may also use the Personal Information we collect to notify you about important changes to our Site, new products and services we will be offering, changes to existing products and services, and special offers we think you will find valuable.
In addition to the Personal Information required of Registered Users, you may also provide us with comments and opinions about FirstSpear and how we service your needs and interests. If you choose to correspond with us through email at sales@first-spear.com, we may retain the content of your messages along with your email address and our responses in secured online and offline databases to help us develop and improve our business and to enhance your use of our Site. Please see the sections titled “Accessing your Information” and “Information Security” for more information about our databases. We may also use your email address to notify you of any available reports you can access on the Site. We may, from time to time, disclose your email address to our secure web host provider to allow necessary maintenance of our Site. Please see the Section titled “Sharing Information with Third Parties” for further details.
You have the right to “opt out” of receiving any unsolicited emails. You may notify us at any time if you do not wish to receive some or all of these communications by contacting us at 636-349-4820 or by emailing us at contact@first-spear.com.
Credit Card Transactions
Credit card transactions are processed by Authorize.Net, an online professional payment authorization service chosen for added security and reliability. Only vital necessary information provided by Registered Users is supplied to Authorize.Net to authorize the charge. Information collected during transactions is maintained in their SSL-encrypted database for accounting and billing purposes. Information from these transactions is not released to third parties.
Site Use Information - Cookies
We utilize a standard technology called “cookies” and web server logs to collect information about how our Site is used. A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a Web site, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Information gathered through cookies and web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our Site, and the Web sites visited immediately prior and after visiting our Site. Each Web site can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a Web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other Web sites.
As you use our Site, the Site uses the cookies it generates to differentiate you from other users. Cookies, in conjunction with our web server log files, allow us to calculate the aggregate number of people visiting our Site and to determine which parts of the Site are most popular. Using this information, we analyze the total user feedback and are able to use that analysis to constantly improve our Site and better serve our Registered Users and all Site users. Cookies do not allow us to gather any personally identifiable information about any Registered User or non-Registered User user. We do not store any information that is provided to us through cookies. Our secure web host provider may use cookies that originate from this Site and other Web sites for analytic purposes; however, we have no access or control over cookies used by our secure web host provider.
Sharing Information with Third Parties
We may share your Personal Information (such as your email address as noted above) with our secure web host provider for Site maintenance and administration purposes only. Except as described under “Credit Card Transactions” above, we do not sell, rent or disclose our Registered User email lists or any other Personal Information that we collect and/or retain in our database to third party vendors, commercial businesses or marketing companies. We do not sell customer lists for marketing purposes. Registered User email lists and other user information are assets of our business which may be transferred by operation of law in connection with a sale of assets, a corporate divestiture, merger, or dissolution. If your Personal Information is to be transferred as part of a purchase, sale, or other legal transaction, we will provide you reasonable notice of the planned transfer, and the opportunity, within the stated time frame, to access, change or remove your Personal Information from our database.
Secured Transmissions
Email is not recognized as a secure medium of communication. For this reason, we request that you do not send private or personally identifiable information to us by email. Some of the information you may enter on our Web site may be transmitted securely via Secure Sockets Layer SSL, 128 bit encryption services. Pages utilizing this technology will have URLs that start with HTTPS instead of HTTP. Please contact us at 636-349-4820 or email us at contact@first-spear.com if you have any questions or concerns.
Accessing Your Information
We store your Personal Information in an offline database located on our secured server protected by our firewall and on an online secure server which we make available to you for your convenience. You may request access to all Personal Information you have provided to us through the Site and which we keep secured in our online database pursuant to the terms of this Privacy Policy. As part of this service, you may review and update such Personal Information at your discretion by emailing us at contact@first-spear.com or by contacting us at 636-349-4820.
Information Security
We protect all Personal Information stored in our online and offline databases through the use of security protocols which are standard and recommended in the technology industry. However, despite these safety measures, no data stored online or transmitted over the Internet or a wireless network connection can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Accordingly, while we strive to protect your Personal Information, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) there are security and privacy limitations of the Internet which are beyond our control; (b) the security, integrity and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and us through our Site cannot be guaranteed; and (c) any such information and data may be viewed or tampered with in transit by a third party. FirstSpear hereby disclaims all liability and responsibility for any damages to you which are caused by any of the foregoing events if such events were unforeseeable or beyond our reasonable control despite our implementation of industry standard security measures.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and are fully responsible for all user actions made using your password. You agree to immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your password or other breach of security, and to exit from your account at the end of each session. We shall not be responsible for anyone who uses your customer number and/or password without your authorization to obtain access to your Personal Information and/or account information on the Site.
Required Disclosures
We may disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law or subpoena or if we believe that such action is necessary to (a) conform to the law or comply with legal process served on us or affiliated parties; (b) protect and defend our rights and property, our Site, and/or the rights of users of our Site; (c) act under circumstances to protect the safety of users of our Site, us, or third parties.
Linking Policy
On our Site we may provide one or more hyperlinks (a “Link”) or a banner advertisements (a “Banner Ad”) containing a Link to third party websites (“Third Party Site”) containing information that may be of interest to you. These links will allow you seamless access to such Third Party Sites directly from one or more pages of our Site. We are not affiliated with the owners of these Third Party Sites, we do not exercise ownership or control over these Third Party Sites, and are therefore not responsible for the security or privacy practices employed by the owners of these Third Party Sites or for the content and information contained on these Third Party Sites.
Please remember that when you use a link to go from our Site to a Third Party Site, our Privacy Policy is no longer in effect. Any information you actively or inactively (through cookies) provide through browsing and/or interaction on any Third Party Site, including Third Party Sites which have a link on our Site, is subject to the Third Party Site’s own rules and policies. Please read over those rules and policies before proceeding.
Changes to Privacy Policy
By using our Site you consent to our collection and use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes to the terms of this Privacy Policy, we will notify you of those changes by posting a notice on the home page of our Site and will update the date of this Privacy Policy in order to keep you informed at all times of the information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it. You may contact us at 636-349-4820 or email us at contact@first-spear.com with any questions or concerns with respect to changes made to this Privacy Policy.
Last Updated: February 2018
Healthcare Coverage Transparency – MRFs
This link leads to the machine-readable files that are made available in response to the federal Transparency in Coverage Rule and includes negotiated service rates and out-of-network allowed amounts between health plans and healthcare providers. The machine readable files are formatted to allow researchers, regulators, and application developers to more easily access and analyze data.